KRIS Boyd, the former Scotland striker, said last night that Murrayfield was an ‘unbelievable stadium’ and the SFA would be foolish not to make use of it for international matches. The veteran Kilmarnock frontman sampled the atmosphere for the first time as a player on Sunday – scoring the opening goal in the Rugby Park side’s fine 2-1 win against Hearts. As much as he acknowledges the iconic nature of Hampden, he also feels the famous Mount Florida stadium is now a “bit dated” and the national governing body have a major decision on their hands as they ponder whether to renew their lease when it expires in 2020.
“You won’t get many better surfaces than that,” said Boyd. “But it would be wonderful to see the national team through here if that is the case going forward because it is an unbelievable stadium – well it is the biggest in Scotland. You want to attract and give the fans the best opportunity to come along and have the best match experience - and you definitely get that at Murrayfield.
“Hampden has a lot of history as well,” he added. “But when you look at the big picture Hampden is starting to get a bit dated. Do we want to lose the national team playing in Glasgow? No, you don’t. But we have a fantastic facility through here if it is in the meantime – the infrastructure and everything is here. We would be silly not to use it. And there are a lot of Scotland fans based through here as well. Hampden is an iconic stadium as well – it will always be. So they might have a decision to make soon.”
While Sunday’s match was played with just 16,000 people in the 67,000-capacity stadium, it was still a decent spectacle and few of the Kilmarnock fans will have gone back home unhappy after Adam Frizzell’s spectacular winning goal. “It was a bit of a false environment in terms of the atmosphere because it was not full,” said Boyd. “But if the national team were to come through here it would be different and last week [Hearts versus Rangers] I was led to believe it was a fantastic atmosphere as well. Big stadiums when they are full give off something else – even today for the likes of us when we are coming through here today it was never going to be a full house but you can still see what it would be like when you get a decent crowd in.”
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